John Moat
by George J. Dance Roger John Moat (11 September 1936 - 16 September 2014) was an English poet and novelist.John Moat obituary, The Guardian, October 12, 2014. Web, Dec. 19, 2014. Life Moat was born in India in 1936. He won an art prize sponsored by John Piper at 15. At 18 he studied for a year under English draughtsman Edward Kapp. He then decided to become a writer, and studied English at the University of Oxford. After leaving university, he worked as a teacher for 4 years, before becoming a full-time writer.John Moat, Web, Feb, 11, 2014. At 24 he bought an isolated property on the Atlantic coast of North Devon. He has lived there ever since, since 1965 with his wife, Antoinette. They have two children, Elspeth and Ben. In 1968, with poet John Fairfax, he founded the Arvon Foundation, which has become one of Britain's premier creative writing enterprises. Moat was also the founder of Tandem, a teachers' and writers' alliance, and the Extension Trust, an art and education charity. For more than 20 years he was a columnist for the alternative magazine, Resurgence. He began painting again around age 30, giving occasional exhibitions, and illustrating his own books. Writing Michael Baldwin: "John Moat's way with verse is all music. Under and beyond his metres the music is always there, sounding out the harmony he so richly experiences in the natural world. Serious, satiric, gnomic and - in the oldest and best sense - witty, his is the verse of a man who knows where the deep things are and can touch on them without heaviness." Adam Thorpe: "In all of John Moat's work, there is an extraordinary sense of place which is home. The house and the garden with its babbling stream take on something more than a literary or even mythic status: they envelop us in a reality which is deeply felt, a kind of breathing source from which the poems derive their peculiar strength - wherever they travel to in this much travelled volume. The presiding imagery of the poems - the haunting presence of an Arab girl, the lost child, the sea, the crackle of firewood or the scent of syringa - gives this selection a binding unity as solid as a stone smoothed in the water scales of the stream. It is very English in atmosphere, as (say) Gerald Finzi's music is, and this attracts me, too: yet there are few contemporary poets whose work breathes so broadly and generously."Poetry, John Moat. Web, Feb. 11, 2014. Publications Poetry *''6d. per Annum: Twelve poems''. Newbury, Berkshire, UK: Phoenix Press, 1966. *''Thunder of Grass''. London: Cresset Press, 1969. *''Two Poems'' (pamphlet). London: privately published, 1970. *''The Ballad of the Leat''. Todmorden, UK: Arc, 1975. *''Fiesta'' & The Fox Reviews His Prophecy. London: Enitharmon, 1980. *''Welcombe overtures; with, Stages of solar eclipse; and, The ballad of the leat''. Totnes, UK: Dartington Poetry, 1987. *''Firewater and the Miraculous Mandarin''. Petersfield, UK: Enitharmon, 1990. *''Practice''. Marlborough, UK: Libamus Press, 1994. *''Skeleton Key''. Francestown, NH: Typographeum, 1997. *''The Valley''. Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Libanus Press, 1998. *''100 Poems''. Newbury, Berkshire, UK: Phoenix Press, 1998. Novels *''Heorot''. London: Barrie & Rockcliff, 1968. *''The Tugen and the Toot''. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1973. *''Mai's Wedding''. London: Collins, 1983. *''The Missing Moon''. Green, 1988. Short fiction *''Three Stories'' ("Snow," "The Missing Piece," "Smoke"). Francestown, NH: Typographeum, 1993. *''Rain, and other stories''. Crediton, Devon, UK: Cervisian Press, 2000. Non-fiction *''A Standard of Verse''. Newbury, Berkshire, UK: Phoenix Press, 1969. *''The Way to Write: A stimulating guide to the craft of creative writing'' (with John Fairfax). London: Elm Tree Books / Hamish Hamilton, 1981; New York: St. Martin's, 1981. **revised, London: Penguin: 1998. *''The Best (Including quite the worst) of Didymus''. Devon, UK: Resurgence Press, 2000. *''The Founding of Arvon: A memoir of the early years of the Arvon Foundation''. London: Frances Lincoln, 2005. Juvenile *''Bartonwood''. London: Chatto & Windus, 1978. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:John Moat, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Feb. 11, 2014. See also *List of British poets References External links ;Poems *Poetry ;Prose *John Moat in Resurgence ;Audio / video *John Moat (b. 1936) at The Poetry Archive ;About *John Moat obituary at The Guardian *John Moat Official website. *North Devon Poets: Conversations with John Moat, 2013 ;Etc. *Arvon Foundation Official website. Category:1936 births Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:English poets Category:Poets Category:English novelists Category:English painters